The Ethnographic Study
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In this essay Ill discuss about how globalization has made it possible for different cultures to co-exist. I could find this is in my ethnographic study that how the Chinese buffet I visited had found a place in England, how people from different origins and different parts of the world were having their meals at this Chinese buffet. This is truly a concept that has been successful because of globalization. I aim to develop a much more understanding about cultural theories of globalization through my study at the Leeds buffet.
In my ethnographic study, I observed the Leeds buffet from within. I observed and found that “the whole place had dim yellow lights which bounced softly against the warmly coloured walls. Soft music echoed in the background making the place quite refreshing and relaxing. However, the icing on the cake was the intoxicating aroma of delicious food kept on the counter. I also observed some form of decorations hanging on the walls and when enquired, I came to know that they resemble Chinese firecrackers which are used during their celebrations.Every table had a price card for the buffet and to my delight; students could get a 10% discount on showing a valid id card. There was also a tag line, Eat as much as you like which was music to my hungry stomach.” Four people were responsible for doing all the different kinds of work like clearing the plates from the tables, refilling the food, cleaning the counters and they were also responsible to welcome the guests. There was a manager responsible for the management of this team and she was the only female who was managing the bar area too. I did observe that in the absence of the manager for just a few minutes the staff drifted away from the work they were supposed to do. The buffet menu had a lot of options ranging from starters to salads to main course and a wide range of desserts. The buffet was busy with customers of different age groups and they were found having a chat with their friends and colleagues and were seen enjoying their meals.
Globalization is a process in which people from different parts of the world are incorporated into one single entity called the global society (Albrow, 1990). “The process of globalization suggests simultaneously two images. The first image entails the extension outwards of a particular culture to its limit, the globe. Heterogeneous cultures become incorporated and integrated into a dominant culture which eventually covers the whole world. The second image points to the compression of cultures. Things formerly held apart are now brought into contact and juxtaposition (Featherstone, 1995).”
Globalization has made the world to shrink. Globalization is having an immense effect on everything that we do in our lives today, right from the clothes that we wear to the food that we have is all influenced by globalization.The clothes that we wear may be manufactured in India, the food that we may have maybe Chinese food and the watch that we may wear may be a Swiss watch, so in one single day we may come across so many other things. In simpler words we may say that we are a product of globalization now. Tian, Guang, Wang and Flong (2010) in their article mentioned about how globalization is having an impact on ones eating habits. They mention how cultural factors play a very vital role in deciding which foods to have and which not to have depending upon the culture to which they belong. Customer satisfaction is a very essential criterion because it directly relates to loyalty of the customer to the restaurant. The customers perception of the restaurant culture helps him decide or that is what drives him to different ethnic restaurants. They are highly influenced by tastes, different options and kinds of food, reasonable quantity offered and for an affordable price. As the whole world is now bitten by the global bug, it has become easy to satisfy customers from different parts of the globe as they now embrace similar tastes, desires, expectations and demands. Though setting up homogeneous strategies globally sound suitable, the recognition of cultural distinctiveness should not be ignored because it plays a very vital role as there are certain risks associated with it and if they are not identified could result in a failure of the organization or the establishment (Asgary, Nader, Alf and Walle,2002).
Ardalan (2008) in his article mentions that culture is a very powerful tool and like every coin has two sides so does if the cultures are not identified properly could be not a good sight later. He further states how different people could view at things differently, each one maybe true but reality is much more complex than thought about and trying to learn from each other cultures would benefit and the best way to live in this world to know how others think. Jackson (2000) states that how cultural homogeneity is far from still being achieved and there is a resilience of local consumption of cultures existing. Global brands like McDonalds have been very successful in identifying the local cultural aspects and they have been successful. In his study of Indias consumer behaviour he identified this to be very true and observed that the various different ethnic cuisines in India had a local cultural influence in terms of taste. The Chinese food available in India is referred to as the Indian-Chinese by the local people and they like it this way, even the Pizzas available India are custom made with the Indian spices as topping on it with the other topping. He says that instead of homogeneity of a culture being dominant there is hybridization of cultures and it acts as mix in this globalizing world. In fact this proves to be doing well for global organization bringing their culture and having a hybrid with the local cultures and which makes them perform better on the global scale.
Globalisation involves developing marketing strategies considering the whole world as a single entity, marketing standardised products in the same way everywhere.Internationalisation involves customising marketing strategies for different regions of the world according to cultural, regional and national differences to serve specific target markets. In order to standardise the marketing mix, the strategy needs to group countries by social, cultural, technological, political and economic similarities. McDonalds has been found having a right marketing mix of 7Ps working very much in favour of them. It is found that they have understood the local cultural values and have implemented that well along with the global standardized mix which has helped them to perform well globally. A very interesting point raised in this article was how the business phenomena think globally, act locally works phenomenally well in this globalized world. (Vignali, 2001)
A consumer mentality is often regarded